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A tale of 2 halves

The final score may have looked like a comfortable win for Arizona, but Friday night's game was anything but easy.

Arizona advanced to the Preseason National Invitation Tournament final four Wednesday night in New York City after defeating New Mexico State 84-60 at McKale Center. The Wildcats face Notre Dame, who knocked out then No. 4 Ohio State in Columbus, Ohio in the first round and Siena at home in the second.

The Aggies came out fighting and didn't let up against heavily-favored Arizona, forcing UA to be more patient and use its depth to gradually wear NMSU out.

"They were a real physical team and the refs were... not bad," sophomore swing forward Richard Jefferson said. "The refs did a good job of adjusting, you know, but wow, we just had to get used to the physical play and the way the refs were calling it and... yeah."

Sophomore forward Michael Wright had a career-high 24 points, plus 13 rebounds, while playing against some familiar faces. Four NMSU players are from Chicago, Wright's hometown, and Aggies' senior point guard Billy Keys played in the same high school conference and weekend pick-up games with Wright.

"You've got to give credit to New Mexico State, they came out at us and out-hustled us in the first half," Wright said. "They played real physical and they really got after us, but luckily, we wore them down."

Wright was hitting almost every one of his shots in the first half, including ones he didn't intend to.

After receiving a pass at the top of the three-point line, Wright lobbed a pass in to junior center Loren Woods, who would have finished the alley-oop. Instead, the ball banked off the backboard and in for Wright's first collegiate three-pointer.

"It was a special play that was all for tonight, I was supposed to throw it to Loren off the boards and it went in," Wright said. "I'll take it anytime. I was real shocked."

With the score 33-28 in favor at Arizona at half-time, the Wildcats decided that if it was going to be a physical and up-tempo game, they'd be the ones dictating the action.

Out came an improved Arizona squad in the second half, a team that played nearly flawless and buried the Aggies 52-31 in the half en route to victory.

Tough perimeter defense forced Billy Channing and Keys, two dangerous shooters, to take a number of forced shots, finishing with a combined 26 points for the game. Channing had 26 by himself in NMSU's first-round win over Hofstra.

"We stood around a lot on offense," UA head coach Lute Olson said. "We have a long way to go in terms of moving the ball, but I thought the key for us tonight was our defensive pressure. We did a fabulous job making it tough for them to get the shots."

If the Aggies did penetrate inside, they were met by Woods, redshirt freshman forward Luke Walton and Jefferson, who combined for six of Arizona's eight blocks.

"We have the opportunity to be a good defensive team," Olson said. "Once the ball is inside, we make it pretty tough to score."

Woods struggled for most of the game, but was more aggressive and selfish, something he is criticized as not being enough of, in the final 10 minutes. He finished with 13 points, seven rebounds and three blocks.

"The last eight minutes, I was so focused, I was so determined to do something right," he said. "The first 30 minutes, it seemed like nothing was going right. I couldn't make point-blank range shots, I couldn't make free throws, my man was scoring on me, so coach was just on me. I thought if I don't do something right, I'm going to sub myself out of the game. I turned it around and it was okay."

The freshmen backcourt duo, Jason Gardner and Gilbert Arenas, each finished the game with four fouls. Gardner had 12 points and Arenas had 10.

Gardner received a technical foul in the second half after making a lay-up while being fouled. The referees thought Gardner was rubbing it in, but Gardner, his team and especially the fans didn't agree.

"They said that I got in his face and I was taunting him, I don't think I was really doing it, I was just excited because I was on the bench for a while," Gardner said.